Mauersberger wrote this Motet from the impressions of the Destruction of Dresden in February 1945. Two month before the war was over the city was badly destroyed within a few days. The city centre burned down almost totally. Besides the Church of Our Lady also the Semper Opera, the Zwinger, the Cathedral and 80% of the dwellings were destroyed or damaged. Between 25 000 and 40 000 people died (they dont know the accurate amount because there were about 200 000 refugees from the former east parts of Germany in town).
Also the Church and the school of the Holy Cross Choir were destroyed and eleven choir boys died. But Mauersberger re-establish the choir just after the end of the war. In August 1945 they started singing again and lived in cellars at the outskirts of Dresden for some years. In August also the world-premiere of the motet was sung in the ruins of the Holy Cross Church.
Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst,
die voll Volks war.
Alle ihre Tore stehen öde.
Wie liegen die Steine des Heiligtums vorn
auf allen Gassen zerstreut.
Er hat ein Feuer aus der Höhe
in meine Gebeine gesandt
und es lassen walten.
Ist das die Stadt, von der man sagt,
sie sei die allerschönste,
der sich das ganze Land freuet.
Sie hätte nicht gedacht, dass es ihr zuletzt so gehen würde;
sie ist ja zu gräulich heruntergestoßen
und hat dazu niemand, der sie tröstet.
Darum ist unser Herz betrübt
und unsre Augen sind finster geworden.
Warum willst du unser so gar vergessen
und uns lebenslang so gar verlassen!
Bringe uns, Herr, wieder zu dir,
dass wir wieder heim kommen!
Erneue unsere Tage wie vor alters.
Herr, siehe an mein Elend,
ach Herr, siehe an mein Elend!
Siehe an mein Elend!
(Transaltion)
How lonely sits the city
that was full of people!
All her gateways are desolate
The holy stones lie scattered
at the head of every street.
From on high he sent fire,
into my bones he made it descend.
Is this the city that was called
the perfection of beauty,
the joy of all the earth?
She took no thought of her future;
therefore her fall is terrible;
she has no comforter.
For this our heart has become sick,
for these things our eyes have grown dim.
Why do you forget us forever,
why do you forsake us for so many days?
Restore us to yourself, o Lord, that we may be restored!
Renew our days as of old.
Lord, behold my affliction,
O Lord, behold my affliction,
behold my affliction.
Alle verwendeten Bilder sind vom Februar 1945 und den folgenden Jahren. Gezeigt werden die Blicke von verschiedenen Türmen der Stadt über zerstörte Stadtteile, die zerstörte Frauenkirche, der beschädigte Zwinger, die ausgebrannte Kreuzkirche sowie die Leichenverbrennungen der Opfer der Bombadierungen vom Februar 1945 auf dem Altmarkt.
All used pictures are from February 1945 and the following years. They show views from different towers in the city over destroyed district, the destroyed Church of Our Lady, the damaged Zwinger, the burned out Holy Cross Church and the cremation of the bombing victims at the Old Market in February 1945.
Rudolf Mauersberger (1889-1971)
Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst (Karsamstag 1945)
Trauermotette aus dem Chorzyklus „Dresden
Text Klagelieder Jeremiae (Bibelstellen Klagelieder 1,1.4.9.13; 2,15; 5,17.20-21)
RMWV 4 no. 1.
Uraufführung: 4. August 1945
Aufnahme: Lukaskirche Dresden Jan./Febr. 1992
Dresdner Kreuzchor, Gothart Stier
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rougyMy grandmother described the horrific firestorm that raged like a hurricane and consumed the city. It seemed as if the very air was on fire. Thousands were killed by bomb blasts, but enormous, untold numbers were incinerated by the firestorm, an artificial tornado with winds of more than 100 miles an hour that “sucked up its victims and debris into its vortex and consumed oxygen with temperatures of 1,000 degrees centigrade.”
I read that some of the bombers had to veer away and drop their bombs off target because the heat was too great for the men to stand.
OrnthoronAmerican planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses, took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.
The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.
When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.
-Kurt Vonnegut jr., Slaughterhouse-Five
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